Cricket Today - Chapter 2 - Off Spin

Off spinners? Who? In the international circuit, there is no frontline off spinner with the exception of a certain Muthaiah Muralidharan. Some may argue that Harbhajan Singh is a frontline off spinner. Although this is true, he is not able to keep his place in the Indian side. Why is there this dearth of this kind?

Leg spinners are more than off spinners in number today but there could be more of them. This dearth of off spinners is because of one reason. The common practice today is to become a batsman and bowl part time off spin. But there are the aspiring bowlers. These bowlers – a large number of them at least - choose at a young age to become fast bowlers. And this group of fast bowlers is a rather large percentage of the total aspiring bowlers. And those who choose to become spinners tend to sway towards leg spin because of its being a more attractive art.

Off spin is highly under rated. People take off spin for granted at the juniour levels and any batsman who can barely turn his arm over is ready to bowl off spin. This really should not happen. Cricketers should learn to appreciate the art.

At the international level, Murali is an off spinner who dominates over his opposition continuously. Batsmen fear him for the rip he gets on the ball and the amount of turn he gets. The Australians hate playing him and have got rather original and indigenous ways of reducing the amount of pressure Murali puts on them.

Harbhajan, on the other hand is a very capable off spinner, a little more orthodox than Murali. He is not capable of producing those great deliveries that often. He can nail the batsman with consistent nagging.

Apart from these two, the guys who are hardly in the team – Gareth Batty and Shaun Udal (both England), Nathan Hauritz (Australia) and Johan Botha (RSA who has been booked for an illegal action) – and the part timers – Shoab Mailk, Virender Sehwag and Andrew Symonds (also bowls medium pace) - are all we have. Is that it or does someone have something in store?-BS